How did the 180 degree turn-around on Ukraine get into the Republican Party platform? At the time, it was widely reported in the news-- generally without comment or controversy-- that Trump had demanded it and that no one stood up to him. His own national security adviser at the time, J.D. Gordon-- who admitted late this afternoon to Jim Acosta that he too had meetings with Kislyak during campaign-- said last March that Trump had personally ordered it. Did no one wonder why? Brian Naylor reported the changes in early August. "When Republican Party leaders drafted the platform prior to their convention in Cleveland last month," he wrote, "they had relatively little input from the campaign of then-presumptive nominee Donald Trump on most issues-- except when it came to a future Republican administration's stance on Ukraine.
It started when platform committee member Diana Denman tried to insert language calling for the U.S. to provide lethal defensive weapons to the Ukrainian government, which is fighting a separatist insurrection backed by Russia. Denman says she had no idea she was "going into a fire fight," calling it "an interesting exchange, to say the least."Denman is a long time GOP activist from Texas. When she presented her proposal during a platform subcommittee meeting last month, "two gentleman," whom Denman said were part of the Trump campaign, came over, looked at the language, and asked that it be set aside for further review.She says after further discussion the pair "had to make some calls and clear it." She says they found the language was still too strong.The Trump campaign convinced the platform committee to change Denman's proposal. It went from calling on the U.S. to provide Ukraine "lethal defensive weapons" to the more benign phrase "appropriate assistance."It's more than semantics. Many Republicans have been demanding the Obama administration provide a more robust response to Russia's incursions in Ukraine.Denman "was steam rolled," said Melinda Haring of the Atlantic Council, a Washington, DC, think tank, who believes the language the Trump campaign approved is weaker. And she says "it's anyone's guess" what Trump would do regarding Ukraine and Russia, and that perhaps he might not even back "appropriate assistance."...Another GOP delegate on the platform committee, Rachel Hoff, is a national security analyst with the American Action Forum and believe the final platform language signals that a Trump administration would refuse to send lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine."This puts Trump out of step certainly with Republican leadership but I would also say mainstream conservative foreign policy or national security opinion," Hoff said.
Now watch the clip below from an August 1 Trump interview with George Stephanopoulos on This Week. Trump seems very insistent that he had nothing to do with the platform change.Stephanopoulos: Why did you soften the GOP platform on Ukraine?Trumpanzee: I wasn't involved in that. Honestly [a dead giveaway for when Trump is lying], I was not involved.Stephanopoulos: Your people were.Trumpanzee: Yeah. I was not involved in that. I'd like to, uh, I'd have to take a look at it. [Another dead giveaway signifying Trump lies.]Stephanopoulos: Do you know what they did?Trumpanzee: They softened it. I heard. But I was not involved.He then started speaking about Putin's intentions regarding Ukraine in a way that appears to indicate that he either knows something-- or wants people to think he knows something-- about Putin's plans. It sounds like he's had some assurances.No one knows for sure-- other than Putin and his intimates and Trump and his intimates-- what really wet down between the Russians and the Trump campaign. But afterTed Cruz made an idiot of himself on Morning Joe Thursday, calling the Sessions scandal "a nothing burger," I asked Beto O'Rourke, the El Paso congressman who will oppose Cruz's reelection in 2018, if he had a different perspective on this whole Putin-Gate thing. And does he ever! "The Trump-Russia connection," he told me, "is one of the most disturbing developments in the history of our country. We need to know who knew what and when they knew it. And most importantly we need to know who ordered it. The integrity of our democracy depends on it. We need an indendent investigation, separate and apart from this administration. Anyone who tries to sweep this under the rug is part of the cover up. They're working for the clampdown."Fast-forward to the daily circus at Trumpanzee transitional headquarters at Trump Tower in New York. Remember the parade of clowns coming to pay obeisance to his Trumpiness and his Trumpy children everyday. They all ran a gauntlet of reporters and cameras-- one drooling idiot after another. Except one, the multi-chinned Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, reputed grandmaster of Russia's Western hemisphere spy network. Sooner after Trump was elected-- or whatever-- Kislyak flew down from Washington and waddled in through a backdoor service entrance and up a secret elevator without anyone knowing he was in the building for a meeting with Flynn and Jared Kushner-in-law (but supposedly not Trumpanzee himself). It was just admitted by the White House yesterday. Why? Why was it secret? And why did they cough up the information yesterday just as calls for Jeff Sessions resignation/firing were reaching a fever's pitch? Were other ambassadors snuck into Trump Tower for secret meetings, or just Kislyak. Did Sessions, Page, Kushner and other Trump operatives meet with other ambassadors at all? Or just Kislyak? We need to shut down this whole Trump operation until we can figure out what the hell is going on!Also yesterday... just before Chris Hayes got another Trump security advisor, Carter Page, to admit on camera that he had also met with Kislyak during the campaign, Señor Trumpanzee referred to the Sessions scandal as a "Total witch hunt," something echo-ed, word for word by Putin's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, this morning: "witch hunt."Last week a poll was released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal showing that most Americans want a non-partisan investigation into Putin-Gate. 53% of Americans want the investigation and only 25% don't. What's standing in the way? Take a closer look at those two at the top of the page.
